Wild mustangs are an invasive species in the American West. But, then, so are all the humans living here who are not of American Indian descent.

The wild lands in Utah and other Western states where wild horses now roam are fragile and arid — places easily endangered by encroaching, rapidly multiplying horses numbering in the thousands and tens of millions of people who are multiplying even faster and doing more to threaten the land.

Humans have all but obliterated many of the native plant and animal species, including wolves, buffalo, beaver, otters, sage grouse, tortoises, prairie dogs and myriad varieties of plants and even fish.

Running cattle on fragile public land causes more harm than wild horses do, but the humans who have taken over this part of the globe do not want to share scarce feed with animals they cannot work, sell or butcher.

Spring marks the annual beginning of an increasingly popular non-lethal method of removing unwanted prairie dogs: Relocation of entire segments to more suitable and protected habitat.

But the job isn’t for sissies or the faint of heart, because there is a huge amount of work and preparation involved, with a variety of associated challenges, including potentially fatal consequences for a number of prairie dogs—sometimes even if the job is done by experts.

Why did the prairie dog cross the road? Possibly to get to Boot Hill Ranch Estates.

At the April 9 meeting of the Custer County Commission, Les McClanahan, a Boot Hill resident, came before the commission to express his and his neighbors’ uneasiness with a prairie dog town that has grown on land south of Hwy. 16 across from Boot Hill. The land is sandwiched between American Presidents Resort and Granite Heights Drive. McClanahan wondered if the county had any authority to eliminate prairie dogs on private land.

Cute is not a reason to go on living in the grander evolutionary scheme of things, but it must count for something. People love prairie dogs, even if they are next thing to a rat.

Michael Burns never expected to be walking around the plaza dressed in a big, fuzzy, buff-colored costume on the Saturday after Earth Day, hugging children and carrying a cardboard placard that said “Prairie dog family values.” The 36-year-old self-employed salesman who moved to Santa Fe from Portland, Ore. about four years ago, said he never thought much about prairie dogs until recently.